Shop ‘Til You Drop at the Shilin Night Market – Part 2

I think the traditional or more iconic Shilin Night Market is found here on JiHe. Along JiHe road, you’ll see a smattering of traditional Taiwanese games, street foods, and even a Buddhist temple smack in the middle of the nightmarket itself.

These traditional arcade games begin around 7PM and can be found right along JiHe road.

Walking straight ahead and past these game stands, you will see the covered Shilin night market area where you can buy Taiwanese delicacies as souvenirs. Also, there’s more alleys there to explore. By this time, I strongly suggest you drink a bottle of Red Bull. You will be in for more and I mean MORE.

clothes, souvenirs, food, dry goods, gadget accessories, and more

JiHe has its own version of alleys to infinity shopping access

You can also try some more traditional Taiwanese games here such as shrimping and fishing:

Shrimping: your catch is your dinner.

Fishing: your catch is your pet (or dinner, depends on you).

The covered market mostly caters to souvenir items and accessories for your gadgets.

grilled bacon

These slipper iPhone cases are quite popular here. The slipper design is also a Taiwanese icon.

Inside, there’s also a basement food court which you can try to check out.

As you make your way past the covered market, you will also see a bunch of food stands and shops that will fill up your belly even more.

Before ending this post, I’d like to share to you a bunch of tips that can help make your Shilin Night Market trip a special and hassle-free one. They are tried and tested (some a product of experience hehe) by me.

1. Wear comfortable shoes and eat before you walk around. Bring some water too. The roads are long and the number of shops to check out will take hours of your time.

2. In relation to #2, if you want to fully check out Shilin I suggest you do it in two different nights.

3. You can haggle. As much as I want to teach you some Mandarin words, I think it’ll be better to just communicate in English. Most vendors speak English anyway since Shilin night market is a popular tourist destination.

4. Lots of sellers would offer you free food or drinks to taste but ask first what it is before trying one. Not that it’s unsafe, you just want to make sure that you will like it or that it doesn’t contain anything you are allergic to.

5. Check out the timetable below at Jiantan MRT to make sure you don’t miss the last ride if you are taking the train back to your accommodation.

If all else fails, just remember, Taiwan is one big compact island so no matter which alley you get lost into, you are still going to end up in Taiwan. 😀